As the Bismarck sank her funnel, what was left of her masts and her four gun turrets all broke away, and made their own way to the seabed, 5,000 yards (4,572m) below the surface of the Atlantic. The ship itself was facing towards the north-west, and lying on her port side shortly before she finally sank, and, although she rolled over further as she began sinking by the stern, she righted herself as she went down. The British placed the position of her sinking at 48˚10’ North, and 16˚12’ West, but this was based on dead reckoning, as the skies were too overcast to permit an accurate navigational fix using the sun or stars. After she submerged Bismarck also glided some distance as she sank, unlike the turrets, which virtually fell vertically towards the ocean floor. As a result, the location of her resting place was known only very approximately.
In July 1988, after his successful location of the RMS Titanic, the deep-sea explorer and scientist Dr Robert Ballard began searching for the wreck of the Bismarck. He began by searching the location given by the Royal Navy, but he found nothing. He returned and widened the search, covering over 200 square miles (520 square kilometres) of seabed before he finally located the shipwreck on 8 June 1989. She actually lay some distance from the given position – the result of her underwater glide as much as the lack of precise wartime navigation. It also appears that when she hit the seabed she continued moving for another 3,000ft (910m), leaving a trail of debris as she went, before finally coming to rest in 15,700ft (4,790m) of water.
Before Ballard and his team discovered her she had lain there undisturbed for almost half a century, her jagged scars softened by marine growth, and her broken hull a haven for marine life. The team explored the ship herself and the debris field behind her, in an attempt to piece together her final moments, and to understand the full extent of the damage inflicted on her during her last battle. The Bismarck is resting upright on the seabed, embedded in mud as far as her waterline. She carries the scars of the dreadful pounding she received on the morning of 27 May, but otherwise her hull is remarkably intact, missing only the last 10m (30ft) of her stern, which broke away during her sinking.
Ballard followed the debris trail backwards to discover her turrets, lying upside down on the seabed, marking the spot where the Bismarck actually sank. The debris trail itself is littered with broken pieces of superstructure, such as her funnel, her masts and her gun directors. On the ship itself the torn teak decking can still be seen on the quarterdeck, where Müllenheim-Rechberg jumped into the sea, and the mangled remains of the bridge can still be seen, where Admiral Lütjens and Kapitän Lindemann went down with their ship.
In July 2001 a deep-sea exploration team led by David L. Mearns also located the wreck of the battlecruiser Hood, her shattered remains lying 9,000ft (2,800m) below the surface of the Denmark Strait. The examination helped to explain why she blew up so quickly, and showed just how cataclysmic the explosion was which tore her apart. Both exploration teams treated the shipwrecks they found as if they were war graves, and went to great lengths to avoid disturbing the final resting places of so many sailors. Plaques were laid next to the wreck sites, honouring the 3,500 men who lost their lives when the two ships sank. Once the exploration teams departed, the two mighty protagonists were once again left in peace in the cold and darkness of the Atlantic floor.